Firmament
by Disgruntled the 8th dwarf
Summary: The things that we hate about others are usually a reflection of the things we hate about ourselves, and Draco Malfoy really hates Harry Potter. Pre-slash of the H/D UST variety.


I've branched out recently and begun dabbling in other fandoms, primarily Harry Potter. I have several Potter fics in progress, and a bunch more planned, but this is the first I've published. It's really more of a character drabble, but it seems I'm incapable of writing anything under 1k, so I feel ok posting this on its own. It was originally written to help me get a feel for Draco's character for a fest I'm participating in on livejournal.

**Warnings: **Swearing and pre-slash of the H/D UST variety

**Disclaimer**: Harry Potter and all recognizable characters herein are property of their creator, J.K. Rowling, publishers, and license holders; no copywrite infringement is intended.

Feedback and CC, as always, are appreciated; even if it is just a "yeah, I read it."

**Firmament**

Draco Malfoy hated Harry Potter. At least, that was what he told himself. He hated the Gryffindor's arrogance: Potter's presumption that everything revolved around him, The Boy Who Lived, even as he griped about being _so_ bloody famous. Draco rolled his eyes, lobbing a down-filled pillow furiously across the room.

His dorm mates knew to leave him well enough alone when he was in a mood, but he resented their absence; as if he were a child who couldn't mediate his own behaviour when things didn't go his way. Even more, he resented the fact that they were right to treat him as such when he acted like it, and his lack of control made him even more furious! Malfoy's didn't lose control of their emotions; they nursed their anger and frustration and humiliation as a heavy mass in their chest cavities, pressed up against the heart, until the ache could be released slowly and used as fuel.

"_Fuck_ Potter!" Draco sneered unattractively; Perfect Potter who was incapable of minding his own business, and then threw himself a pity party when he found himself in the thick of things. Potter who thought that Draco Malfoy (_Draco__Malfoy__!_) spent every waking second dreaming up ways to antagonize him and his wretched friends, as if Draco were nothing but Potter's vengeful shadow!

He was breathing heavily, and his hands were clenched around the bedclothes so tightly that they ached.

"It's not fair!" the blond choked on his impotent frustration. "It's not sodding fair!"

He didn't even know what specifically he felt was so unfair, but that didn't change the fact that the feeling was there compressing his lungs and burning him up from the inside out.

Betrayal, he thought; that was what he felt: betrayal and self-righteous fury. It was a general feeling that Draco couldn't attribute to any one individual or situation, but it weighed on him like a lead mantle, and right now, with the events of an hour ago still fresh in his mind, Golden boy Potter and his pet mudblood and his bum chum the Weasel were the focus of his rage.

Draco summoned the pillow back across the room with a quick "_accio_" and hurled it again, with his wand this time. It hit the far wall with such force that it exploded in a cloud of white and brown feathers. Draco watched the eider down wafting through the air on the other side of the room to land on Theo's coverlet, like the downy tufts of milkweed that lazily toured the hillsides of Wiltshire in late summer. He had the fleeting mental image of the feathers taking root on the bed and growing into quacking eider ducks, but it wasn't a sufficient distraction from his foul temper.

Potter had no business ridiculing _him_. After all, Draco was looked up to by his peers because he was shrewd, and witty, and intelligent, and because he was _somebody_ beyond a dimwitted half-blood with a pocked forehead.

Draco got good grades in _all_ of his subjects, not just the ones taught by professors who were old family friends and in league with Dumbledore. _He_ wasn't exempted from school rules by virtue of having dead parents and some stupid ugly scar on his face. Draco wasn't the one who dressed from a muggle bin bag, so where did Potter get off?!

Heat radiated off Draco's face as he thought of Potter, and he knew his cheeks were splotchy and red with pique. How _dare_ Potter make him feel like this! Although, a little niggling feeling buried deeply under years of anger and insult suggested that it wasn't _specifically_ Potter who made him feel this, although the Loutish Wonder was particularly good at bringing such emotions to the fore, that he was quite familiar with feelings of perfidiousness and maybe it was something he just… felt maybe? He didn't really understand his own thoughts.

Not that there was anything wrong with that; if he felt the need to fill empty space with anger than it stood to reason that he had justification for doing so. He wasn't wrong to hate Potter, or Dumbledore, or the rest of those Gryffindor half-wits who judged him. They had _no right_., the hypocritical bastards, who laughed right along with him when he'd pulled a particularly clever or spectacular prank on the scarred git and still had the gall to scowl at him in the hallway when he insulted Potter's mother.

Draco snorted disdainfully and flopped back on his bed, staring at the underside of the canopy, which he'd charmed to display a perfect replica of the night sky. The stars winked down on him as they played hide-and-seek behind swirling grey clouds. He often just lay in bed and watched the stars, it relaxed him, and he found he did some of his best thinking in this position. It was a far more convenient way to do his astronomy homework as well, provided he didn't end up falling asleep, the dungeons were far less drafty than the crumbling old astronomy tower. He didn't even mind being woken by a flash of lightening spidering across the canopy from one end to the other and the accompanying low, percussive roll of thunder.

His father had once likened him to a thunderstorm when he was a child; elegance and power, a force of nature, a Malfoy. Draco was always inexplicably melancholic to see the sky above his prone form darken and clear, revealing the twinkling stars that he usually found so calming.

He'd spent a lot of time over the past couple of years staring up at the star-spangled welkin he'd superimposed on the expanse of green velvet stretched over his bed frame and thinking about Potter. About how much he hated him. About how much happier he'd be if he never saw Potter's scarred face across the Great Hall during breakfast ever again. About how much he wished Harry Potter would just _die_ already!

Honestly, Draco shifted irritably, Potter'd had ample opportunity to off himself over the years, what with the way he threw himself into dangerous situations with all the forethought of an angry and especially dim-witted troll. And, still, Potter was alive to skulk the corridors in the middle of the night on the assumption that curfews only applied to students who hadn't parried killing curses with their foreheads as infants.

It didn't matter how _amazing_ everyone else thought Potter was though, Draco knew differently: Potter might be a "worthy", Draco scoffed, opponent on the Quidditch pitch, but he was a total prat with obnoxious, pitiable friends and the emotional intelligence of a cucumber! Precious Potter who was never in the wrong because anyone who didn't care for him or his sanctimonious attitude was deserving of contempt.

Draco felt his breathing pick up as his thoughts once again churned with images of green eyes sparkling with amused condescension, and wild dark hair, and tensed square shoulders, and the dismissive motion of one strong masculine hand.

"It's not fair!" Draco groaned despairingly burying his face in his hands.


End file.
